Andrei gains skills in reading notes, ignoring them

We don't watch TV on Saturday mornings, but every other morning that's the first thing Andrei does when he gets up. Brent usually lets him watch a show or two so he can sleep later. But on Saturday, I'm home so I hang out with him instead.
This Saturday I had to work, so I left a post-it for Andrei that said "NO TV" I was fairly confident that he would be able to either sound it out, or ask Brent what it said.

When I got home I saw that my note was crumpled, but still on the TV, so I knew it had been seen.

What actually happened is this...

Andrei: Look papa, what's this say?
Brent: (still half asleep): I don't know
Andrei: It says - no TV!
Brent: .... Didn't you already watch a movie?
Andrei: yeah...

I'm not sure if I should be proud, or ticked.

Adoption Questions

Andrei just asked me where my other mama is, and how old I was when I came to America.

testing testing 123

The real Batmobile

Seats two


Breakfast service (the other Batman had a cup of coffee but he must have lost it)


I'm told the tailpipe shoots fire


And weaponry. But be careful, front Batman, or you'll get your arm shot off!

We went camping!

We stayed with my parents in their camper for 3 days. :) Andrei had so much fun and is asking already when we're going back.

We did go to the parade, but it was too loud and hot so we left right away (and it was a 2 mile walk from the site - phew)
And we didn't go to the fireworks because we didn't want to walk again, but we heard them from our campsite when we were tucking DS in, so we cuddled and peeked out the window to watch for a bit.
Happy first fourth for our little American!

Hot dogs, of course!


"Try again mama!" Andrei loved the sparklers!


We went to a restaurant that delivered our food by train. That's my mom next to Andrei


Finally 'getting' how to play catch - with some friends that came along.


Oh so tired and ready to go home. :yawn:


And, I got my hands henna-d!

I have to brag :)

$74.50! That's only about one tank of gas! Wahoo!
No hypermiling required. Well - Brent has admitted to trying to drive more conservatively.
Here's what we're doing:
- Only biking or walking to the grocery store. It's about a mile away, and last week I think I overdid Andrei so we might drive today, or maybe we'll have a rest in the park on the way home.
- Only taking the bus downtown. We go once a week to the library and save all of our other downtown errands for that one day. It's about the same price to drive and to bus, but Andrei has a cheap summer pass which makes it better to ride.
- Only run 'south-side' errands after work, or combine errands as much as possible.
- The big one here - I started biking to work! My hours changed and I got a route tip from a co-worker, so now I can bike in. :) It's only 3 miles each way and I really love it (coming from someone who complained last summer about biking to the video store less than a mile away). Actually this probably didn't affect our budget too much since I only started last week, but I'm looking forward to an even lower number at the end of July.

We are going out of town once in July and three times in August, but hopefully we can still keep the numbers low, or find alternative choices instead of driving.

So even though I gave Brent the evil eye for choosing to drive short distances, and sometimes we all run errands together that are somewhat unnecessary, we did great last month and I'm super proud of us!